The Town of Clarkdale is a historic community, with a past long intertwined with the United Verde Copper Company and other mining entities. Clarkdale was founded in 1912 to support the United Verde Copper Company’s mine and smelter near the Town of Jerome. As Clarkdale boomed alongside local industry, Bitter Creek Bridge was constructed in 1917, with the intention of running one of the local roads, Broadway Street, to the smelter. With the closure of the mines, Clarkdale has still retained the landmark bridge, and to this day it connects local traffic to the tourist destination, the Verde Canyon Railroad, as well as the historic downtown district.
Clarkdale is proud of its heritage and has maintained its historic infrastructure, particularly in the downtown district. In addition to the historic district, the Town boasts the Bitter Creek Bridge, a single-lane bridge that connects downtown Clarkdale with additional residences on the north side of town. The bridge’s original structure has been maintained, but as the Town expands and modernizes, the bridge’s structural integrity needs to be evaluated to ensure user safety. To assist with this challenge, Clarkdale partnered with the ASU Project Cities program in a continuation of the Downtown Revitalization project
portfolio, which began in the Fall of 2019. The Fall 2020 continuation of the project involves a small group of students in the FSE 104/404: EPICS Gold class, who consulted with the Town to investigate the bridge infrastructure and develop potential design features that can be used to enhance the bridge while maintaining its historic character.
The EPICS design process is iterative, and as the students identified potential improvements, they also considered the impact of the feature on the community, as well as identified strengths and weaknesses of each solution. Students ultimately developed two primary solutions, strengthen and expand the existing bridge, or build an entirely new bridge while retaining the old bridge as a tourist destination. With each proposed improvement, students produced design mockups, a summary table of findings, and proposed design feature strengths and weaknesses. Students chose not to settle on one proposed solution for Clarkdale, and instead provided various well-suited options for the Town to consider.